Time ATAC cli­p­less MTB ped­als: the first cli­p­less ped­al sys­tem I have tried that does not jam with snow. Since my snow boots do not reli­ably fit into my usu­al toe clips, I am using these (along with my trusty Lake win­ter cycling shoes) on the fix­ie for the rest of the sea­son.

The 100th Anniver­sary of the MIT Radio Soci­ety (June 7). I was once the pres­i­dent of this orga­ni­za­tion. A very unusu­al crowd! Seat­ed to my right was Gor­don from the class of 1948, who was draft­ed in his sopho­more year and sent to Aus­tria to per­form SIGINT on Nazi com­mu­ni­ca­tions. On my left, Clay­ton, a Har­vard grad stu­dent study­ing the role of the Inter­state High­way Sys­tem on the spread of con­ser­v­a­tivism in rur­al Amer­i­can neigh­bor­hoods. That’s just the tip of the ice­berg.

Buzz Aldrin and the Boston Pops (June 11). The leg­endary fight­er pilot, orbital mechan­ics expert, astro­naut, and moon­walk­er, look­ing spright­ly and ath­let­ic at 79 years, nar­rat­ed a Pops per­for­mance of Holst’s The Plan­ets syn­chro­nized to a stun­ning large-screen dis­play of sci­en­tif­ic imagery from out­er space. An unfor­get­table, stag­ger­ing­ly cool expe­ri­ence. “One small step for man?” This guy was stand­ing right there! On the fuck­ing moon! 239,000 miles away! The Pops real­ly ran with the motif, also play­ing Also Sprach Zarathus­tra, themes from Close Encoun­ters of the Third Kind, Star Trek and Star Wars, and a hilar­i­ous Moon Med­ley Sing-Along (fea­tur­ing every­thing from “Fly Me to the Moon” to “Moon­dance” and “Bad Moon Ris­ing”).

Tak­ing pic­tures while my bicy­cle gets built.

Sail­ing in Boston Har­bor. Give me a few more weeks and I’ll stop it with the acci­den­tal jibes.

Jel­ly­fish. On a recent out­ing the har­bor was full of these crit­ters, includ­ing a small swarm that appeared to be chas­ing a sty­ro­foam cof­fee cup. (Mom­my?)

Dark­rooms. Years from now, in a time when chil­dren will ask their par­ents what film is, I will appeal to retro artiste sen­si­bil­i­ties by unveil­ing a cologne scent­ed like ammo­ni­um thio­sul­phate. Mmm, dark­room!

The 6th Annu­al Print­ing Arts Fair (June 21). Fan­tas­tic live demon­stra­tions of all types of print­ing. For a small fee one could type­set cus­tom sta­tionery on the Lino­type and walk home with paper (and sou­venir met­al slug) just 20 min­utes lat­er. A group of artists print­ed large-for­mat wood­cuts with a steam­roller in the park­ing lot. Paper­mak­ing and book­bind­ing crafts were on dis­play. Dozens of art-house print­ers from around New Eng­land were hawk­ing their wares. Wet ink looks deli­cious. Type is a beau­ti­ful thing.

Tax Day Tea Par­ty at Long Wharf (April 15). Stum­bled upon this event by acci­dent. Actu­al demon­stra­tors were large­ly out­num­bered by cam­eras and weirdos. One woman was hold­ing a sign that read “Who is John Galt?”

Swapfest at MIT (April 19). A sure sign of spring. But for once there was noth­ing I want­ed to buy!

The 113th Boston Marathon (April 20). Watched for the first time. An inspir­ing dis­play of ath­leti­cism. Gave me irra­tional thoughts about want­i­ng to run one some­day.

Ratatat live at the House of Blues (April 20). Good music and trip­py visu­als, but the band’s elec­tron­ic instru­ments are con­fig­ured to pret­ty much play them­selves. End result: just like the records, but loud­er.

Sail­ing on Boston Har­bor. So much fun that I paid mon­ey so I can do it all sum­mer.

Vol­vo Ocean Race. Watched the fin­ish of the Rio-to-Boston leg of this insane­ly hard­core sport. The win­ning team sur­vived the final few days with­out a reli­able sup­ply of drink­ing water. Anoth­er fin­ish­er sailed for a week with a bro­ken rib. The boats are pret­ty too—check it out.

Sum­mer weath­er. Keep it com­ing.

Swine flu. Imag­ine what it’s like when you have a cough, a sore throat, laryn­gi­tis, and pos­si­bly a slight fever, and sud­den­ly they start talk­ing about this in the news­pa­per?

A new­ly-mint­ed soft­ware plug-in for the Scot­tos­phere per­mits quick author­ing of these posts using the hereto­fore unknown Wis­dom Watch Markup Lan­guage (WWML).